Reuben Fine was born in 1914. He grew up in New York City and first learned to play chess at the age of eight. After winning several strong American tournaments as a youth, Fine turned to international competition. He played on three US Olympiad teams from 1933 to 1937, winning one gold and one silver individual medal, while all three teams finished first (http://www.olimpbase.org/players/rn...). In 1937 he tied with Paul Keres for first at Margate, and at the AVRO tournament the next year he again finished tied for first with Keres.

During World War II he was employed by the Navy to calculate where enemy submarines might surface.

After World War II, he was offered an invitation to the World Championship tournament in 1948, but declined to participate. He retired from chess a few years later in order to pursue a career in psychology. In his foreshortened career, Fine played tournament games against five world champions. He had overall plus scores against Emanuel Lasker, Alexander Alekhine, and Mikhail Botvinnik, and even records against Jose Raul Capablanca and Max Euwe.

He was an author of note, his most recognized works being Ideas Behind the Chess Openings and Basic Chess Endings.

Herald Tutt: You are right MissScarlett> >
Reuben Fine was also a racist. Please check the cruel and undue racist remarks which he made against extraordinary World Champion Tigran Petrosian mainly he did not like his skin color and where he came from. This fact is in historical records and not some junk rumor.

unferth: The internet puts the collected knowledge of humankind at one's fingertips, and Mr. Tutt chooses to use it to troll a handful of likeable, intelligent posters on an obscure subforum of a niche website. Funny, pathetic, or both? You make the call!

<A "Fine" Tourney: Mr H. Meek notes in London "Evening Times" :- "Reuben Fine, the famous young U.S.A. master, has recently made a tour which took him as far south as Mexico and as far north as Ottawa. He gave twenty exhibitions altogether, including blindfold, consultation and "serious" games. Out of a total number of 418 games, including 21 blindfold, Fine had the remarkable record of 393 wins, 22 draws and only 3 losses. Of the blindfold games alone, he wone [sic] 17, drew 4 and lost none. His biggest display was against 51 opponents in Mexico City, where he won 47, drew 4 and lost none - a single achievement that must rank with anything ever done by Alekhine or Capablanca. On no occasion did he lose more than one game in any display, the three losses being one each at Mexico City (another display to the one mentioned above), Chicago and Minneapolis.">

Dizzy Bishop: It is not sufficient to excel in this greatest of all games. Character is essential. Fine was an outright racist as per his undue comments against Petrosian. Fine was also a coward who gave unfounded and unbelievable excuses for chickening out of the world championship match against Botvinnik. Shame on Fine; a good player having a shameful character.

Petrosianic: <Dizzy Bishop>: <It is not sufficient to excel in this greatest of all games. Character is essential. Fine was an outright racist as per his undue comments against Petrosian.>

Calling him the weakest world champion is hardly evidence of racism. Fine was jealous of all the world champions, including Fischer, whom he also supported. Advertisements in CL&R for his (poorly written) book on the Fischer-Petrosian Match openly labeled Fine as "The Man Who Should Have Been World Champion", which is positively hilarious. It's hard to think of any other player who would say, or allow that to be said about him. It very clearly killed Fine that he never won that title so badly that he eventually tried to rationalize himself as co-world champion after Alekhine's death (based, of course, on his 2nd place finish at AVRO).

Nutty, yes (in fact, a whole book could probably be written about nutty psychiatrists). But racist? That's wishful thinking.

Fine was not cowardly for dropping out of the tournament. He simply decided, correctly, that he couldn't make a living at chess and wanted a real career. Nobody wants to end up like Schlechter. But it was dishonest of him years later to claim he'd dropped out out of dissatisfaction with a tournament format that he'd actually enthusiastically endorsed at the time.

Dionysius1: I don't agree <Dizzy Bishop>. All I find necessary for me to respect and admire an exponent of this great game is that he excel at it. His character away from the board is nothing to do with it.

Howard: There was at least one other alleged reason why Fine turned down his invitation for the 1948 tournament--he suspected the three Soviets would probably collude to make sure that no outsider won the tournament.

Yes, Fine was apparently jealous of Fischer. CL&R wrote back when his "book" on the 1972 match came out that "Fine's envy of Fischer" showed throughout the "book".

And for Fine to claim in it that it seemed "only fair" for him and Keres to be declared "co-champions of the world from 1946-48".....if that's not totally ludicrous, then I dunno what is.

I have 68 Fine games in my collection, of which he won 39 - the wins against Lasker, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik are certainly impressive - but I suppose books like the Mammoth book are aiming for spectacular messy games, on the whole.

<Fine provides a magnificent specimen of positional
play in the following game, which differs from the last
in that it is his opponent who first seizes the initiative.
The way in which Fine not only parries but punishes
these attempts, gains the upper hand, and eventually
consolidates the win is indeed memorable.>

<Fine excels in defence. He is almost unbeatable
when he gets into his stride. He has gone through
many tournaments, among them the exceptionally strong tournaments at Nottingham in 1936 and
Semmering-Baden in 1937, without losing a game.>

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